The present inventive concept relates to a method of fabricating a semiconductor light emitting device.
A semiconductor light emitting device is a semiconductor device generating light within a specific wavelength band due through a recombination of electrons and holes. Since the semiconductor light emitting device has a number of inherent advantages such as a relatively long service life, low power consumption, excellent initial driving characteristics, and the like, in comparison with a filament-based light source, demand therefor has continuously increased. In particular, a group-III nitride semiconductor material with bluish light in a short-wavelength region may be formed, and this type of material has become important in this field.
When a semiconductor light emitting device is fabricated comprising alternating quantum barrier layers and quantum well layers, a quantum barrier layer comprising part of an active layer may be grown at a relatively high temperature because of considerations related to crystallinity. On the other hand, relatively low-temperature growth of a quantum well layer is generally required. Thus, a quantum well layer grown before a quantum barrier layer may be thermally damaged when the quantum barrier layer is grown thereon at a relatively high temperature. In particular, in a case in which a quantum well layer includes a highly volatile element such as indium, in a subsequent relatively high temperature growth process of forming a quantum barrier layer, indium may be agglomerated at an interface between the quantum barrier layer and a previously-formed quantum well layer by volatilization of the indium, thereby acting as a material/device defect. Thus, when a quantum barrier layer is formed thereon, luminous efficiency of a semiconductor light emitting device may be significantly decreased compared with the performance of a comparable device that does not have the agglomeration defect.